It’s tempting to blame greedy landlords for skyrocketing rents in Manhattan. The median price of a one-bedroom apartment is up 25% and a two-bedroom 27% from last year, with some tenants telling The Post of even higher hikes: One West Village studio is going from $2,696 to $3,950.

But those who see this as price-gouging that should be illegal overlook a crucial fact: Many such increases are already illegal — and that’s actually the heart of the problem.

Rent regulation affects 960,000 of the city’s 3 million housing units. Rents on these apartments are not increasing this year at all, thanks to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board. A good deal for the current occupants, to be sure — but these price controls distort the overall market and lead to eye-popping rent increases on the few non-regulated units that remain.

Here’s why.

The lucky occupants of rent-stabilized units, not surprisingly, tend to stay put once they’ve effectively hit the housing lottery. That helps explain why Gotham — once known for welcoming ambitious newcomers — has the lowest housing turnover of America’s 10 largest cities. I call this the “frozen city” phenomenon: Regardless of their capacity to pay a higher rent, households protect their good, rent-regulated deals even if they no longer need the space. Think of the boomer couples on Central Park West with empty bedrooms.

It’s not a real housing market — it’s a variation on musical chairs. Those left standing when the rent-stabilized vacancies are filled must enter the scrum for vacant, market-rate, non-regulated units. It should surprise no one that as housing demand rebounds (a good thing), asking rents will rise for those units. It’s what housing scholar Peter Salins has rightly termed “scarcity by design.”

The situation has been made worse, not better, by 2019’s so-called Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, a vastly beefed-up set of rent regulations. It foreclosed the possibility of “decontrol” even for higher-end units. Nor does there have to be a housing shortage to justify the price controls, as had always been the case. Instead, rent regulation has no “sunset.” No other business has to ask permission to raise its prices (see: inflation), but property owners must do so in perpetuity. And here’s the kicker: There’s no requirement landlords rent to low-income tenants.

If there’s any good news in all this, it’s the possibility the 2019 legislation has gone so far as to be unconstitutional. That’s the contention of the Rent Stabilization Association, which is challenging the law in court.

In the case heard last week by the US Court of Appeals and likely headed to the Supreme Court, the RSA highlights the fact the new law essentially requires that landlords renew an expiring lease even when a tenant has passed the apartment on to someone else, such as a younger family member. This, it says, creates an unending “line of strangers” to whom an owner must rent by law. And, of course, it limits turnover, the heart of the city’s problem.

Property owners hope this will prove a bridge too far for a conservative Supreme Court more attuned to property rights than its predecessors.

It’s a tough moment to push back on the spurious idea that New York City must always and forever be in a housing crisis. But most cities don’t have rent control — and don’t face a perennial housing crisis.

State attorneys in the Rent Stabilization Association case bizarrely argue that the 2019 law has made things better. They assert that only rent regulation stood between the city and a wave of homelessness. To say that with a straight face requires ignoring the sad and sometimes dangerous figures flooding the city’s street corners and subway cars.

As the Coalition for the Homeless points out: The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is 16% higher than it was 10 years ago; the number of homeless single adults is 91% higher. That’s come at a time rent regulation was firmly in place, with the feckless de Blasio administration drastically limiting rent increases.

Here’s an idea for the “Rent is too damn high” advocates to consider: Rent controls actually increase homelessness. That’s because artificially low rents give wealthy tenants who no longer need a big apartment reason to stay put. Gotham rents were the nation’s highest in January. Those skyrocketing rent increases are an argument not for but against rent controls.

Howard Husock is an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow.